


the most sacred of life's keepsakes

by smithens



Series: si l'on n'a pas de soleil, il faut en faire un [1]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eloping, Gen, Self-Discovery, Wedding Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:33:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28014006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smithens/pseuds/smithens
Summary: Thomas and Sybil fall in love and get married.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow & Sybil Crawley
Series: si l'on n'a pas de soleil, il faut en faire un [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2051889
Comments: 24
Kudos: 96





	the most sacred of life's keepsakes

**Author's Note:**

> Title is my own (liberal) translation of a line from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, because that was my past life. #pretentious
> 
> Anyway, here's this, by popular demand/everybody enabling me online!! [Context for this AU can be found on my tumblr here](https://combeferre.tumblr.com/tagged/is-this-heterosexuality-tag/chrono)! Functionally this is the prologue! Don't like don't read xoxo!!
> 
> (but I do hope you like it!! <3)

**November 1918  
Coldstream, Scotland**

"Stop," Sybil says suddenly, feeling frozen, as though all of her limbs are bound into place.

"What?"

"Stop."

"I've already stopped," says Thomas, a metallic edge in his voice, but then it goes away, and all that remains is concern: "I'm not even touching you anymore, what did I–?"

"I don't want to do this."

And she's very, _very_ glad she realised so now, before they've really done anything… Sybil stares up at the ceiling, feeling too many things at once, as though someone had pried into her head and poured more thoughts into her mind than could ever be expected to fit, and then did the same with her chest and her heart, only with feelings. She can still feel the ghost of his lips on the front of her shoulder (he'd touched her so lightly but it's still there on her skin), and where his hand was on her waist.

He'd only just started to move it lower (after they had passed a very long time with above-the-waist courting) when she realised.

"Okay," he says, plainly bewildered. She is, too, but it frustrates her that he doesn't see _why_. "Are you…"

"I'm all right," she snaps.

"Then..."

"I just don't want to."

"Okay," repeats Thomas, but this time he shifts away from her, moving to the other side of the bed and propping himself up. He tugs the linens over himself, and Sybil closes her eyes again, thinking it all over, everything that's happened. She feels at once foolish and the most free she's ever been in her life, though that—the thought of _freedom_ —is unfortunately having little effect on the knot tying itself up in her stomach. "...I don't really want to, myself, if it helps."

"Yes, it does."

It's frightening to her that he's so calm about this, about _not doing this,_ when they'd spent nearly the last _two years_ waiting for precisely this moment, when she thought she'd wanted it more than anything else. Or, not _this_ moment, exactly, but the one that had come several hours earlier… But _this_ is meant to be a natural extension of _that_ , and now here they are and neither of them are very enthusiastic about moving forward.

It's very inconvenient.

She doesn't know _what_ she's feeling.

"I think I'm _different_ ," Sybil murmurs. Maybe he isn't as calm as he seems—she would think herself calm, were she an outside observer looking in on them both, somebody who had never met either of them, but on the inside she's the furthest thing from it.

"Well," says Thomas, awkwardly, "there was never any question of that."

"We were never in love at all, were we?"

" _Oh,_ you mean like–"

But he stops speaking, as abruptly as though he's been interrupted, as though the thought were cut in half as it left his mouth.

Sybil squeezes her eyes shut, opens them, and then gathers her wits and sits up in bed, knowing she'll feel more capable if she's upright. Most of her body is uncovered but Thomas doesn't even look at her, and she isn't tempted to look at him. In fact, he's not looking at her at all—he's looking toward the dressing bureau, eyes level with the gas lamp and its low flame.

They haven't any electricity here.

She'd forgot how eerie the light could be without it... or maybe it's _become_ eerie now that it's so unfamiliar.

There's a chill, too. She tugs the blankets up over her knees, bends them, wraps her arm around. Embracing herself.

"Yes, I mean like that," she says.

"Was probably stupid of me to think I could ever be anything else, wasn't it?"

"No," Sybil tells him, "I'm very persuasive."

Thomas laughs, though it wasn't entirely a joke.

She'd persuaded herself, after all.

* * *

"...it's settled, then," Sybil declares. "We'll have a marriage of convenience."

"I don't think anything about this is _convenient,_ " Thomas says darkly. "Or will your father change his mind about _you marrying one of the servants_ when you tell him it's 'cause you've decided you're an inv–" He stops, abrupt. Sybil looks at him expectantly. " _Have_ you decided?"

It's well within his rights to ask, but that doesn't stop her from feeling defensive. "Yes," she says. But she doesn't know how to argue about it. It's so strong a feeling, words couldn't _possibly_ be enough.

"It's not just me."

"No, it's–" She huffs. "I think I've _always_ known, but I…"

"You?"

 _Words_ won't be enough, but she can do her best, can't she? And if anybody on Earth could understand, it would be him, she's sure of it. Even if she rambles on or trails off or interrupts herself, as she's prone to, when she's full of feeling. In the span of a moment Sybil makes her mind up: she tells him about herself, more than she ever has before—they've spoken about plenty of things in their time working together, many things she'd never shared with anyone else, because they had _experiences_ she'd never shared with anyone else, but of course she'd kept some secrets. Secrets about growing up, about childhood, about how useless she'd always felt and how the only times she ever felt like she could make a difference before the war was in the company of other women, at political meetings yes but also at home, in London, hiding away in gardens and galleries…

"...but I would have had to marry eventually anyway," she finishes. It was quite a speech and she hopes it's as persuasive as she wanted it to be, but she thinks it must have been, looking at him. She has only had to prove herself to Thomas once before—since then, he always listens, and he respects what she has to say. On principle, that is an excellent foundation for a marriage. "I don't think I could get away with not doing it… and I suppose I'd have had to find another man like you, and Mama and Papa would have to approve of him, which I don't think they _would…_ I can't imagine there are very many eligible bachelors who'd like to be married to a woman like that."

Like herself.

It was so sudden an understanding that now she doesn't know what to do with it—it's always been there, lying underneath, she's always had a sense, but now she _knows_. She wonders if she ever would have, had none of this happened. Maybe not.

Thomas pushes himself up, resting his head on his hand, supported by his elbow. She doesn't know what to make of that look on his face: raised eyebrows, half-squinting, lips turned up. She's seen it plenty of times before but it feels _different,_ now.

"Do you think so?" he asks, very innocently.

He has something on his mind.

"Well, unless they were…"

_Like you?_

"There are more of them than you think, Nurse Crawley," he tells her, very seriously. How silly, to call her that while they're undressed and in _bed,_ after they've been married _._ She bundles the counterpane further up to her collar and huffs, because she doesn't know what to say. He's got a way of speaking that makes her feel… not _small,_ not at all, usually it's a _good_ thing, but it makes her horribly aware of all the things she doesn't know and never had the chance to learn, because even after two years of honest work she's so _sheltered,_ and it's terribly uncomfortable. Bare. But he's much better at filling in the gaps than people tend to think, and he does so better than they will ever understand.

She likes to be right, and so does Thomas. Sometimes neither of them are, but she thinks he probably is at the moment. He _would_ know more about men of her station than she would—he's been around them for the last ten years, and she only has for the last four. And her _four_ doesn't count for much, because when you add it up it's really only two, if that.

Of course, she's sure there are other reasons he's so confident.

She's not _that_ sheltered.

They really should have put their clothes back on...

"I don't think you care that much about their approval, actually," Thomas says mildly. "Your parents. I think if it weren't me it'd be somebody else unsavory."

"You're not _unsavory._ "

He ignores her. "Though, you could have made a better choice—you've already got _one_ solicitor in the family, I don't see how they could make too much of a fuss about another one–"

"I thought you didn't mind Matthew," Sybil interrupts, sounding accusing, but she doesn't _really_ regret it.

His nose wrinkles. "And I don't, anymore, but they weren't fond of him at first," _when he says_ they _he means my_ family, "and now they are, so if you'd like somebody cut from a different cloth, a man like that'd turn out better for you than running off with a _servant_ –"

"You're not a servant, either," she says firmly, interrupting again. "You're a sergeant, that's perfectly respectable."

He stares at her. "For a shopgirl off the village high street, maybe."

"The other VADs were sweet on you."

"The _other VADs_ were all middle class schoolgirls with no prospects, their parents'd probably settle for anything, now there's half as many men as there used to be."

He's probably right, of course.

With the idea, not the numbers.

"Besides," Thomas mutters, "I'll not be one for much longer."

Days, if even that. She's avoided thinking about it, because…

"And nor will I be a nurse." But she says it as though it isn't a bad thing, because it isn't, necessarily. They'll have to determine what comes after all this themselves.

"Yes, you'll be Lady Sybil Crawley, and I'll be who knows what."

"You've applied for jobs."

"None of them've got back to me."

"Well, I'm sure they've had many applicants."

"Yes, so they're probably taking the best of the lot and leaving the rest of us to–"

"And what makes you think you aren't one of the best?"

This time her interruption keeps him quiet for longer than a mere moment—he closes his mouth, then opens it again, his brow furrowed. But he doesn't say anything.

"Go on," Sybil urges, "tell me."

Thomas tilts his head, and for a brief second she almost thinks he'll answer her, but he doesn't.

"See?" she says, triumphant. "You can't, because you haven't any reason to."

"Yes, I have."

He's pouting.

It _is_ very sweet, but all at once she's understood that this is just what having a _friend_ is like, that you share things and hopes and dreams, that you can be silly with one another and show each other things you wouldn't show anybody else, parts of yourself. Theirs was founded in tragedy, she supposes, and that simply sped things up, made them more confusing. "I suppose it's secret, then, since you won't share it?" she asks, pointed.

"Well–"

"Listen, we can't go on as what we've been, and I don't want to go back to how things were before, so we'll simply have to find new things to be."

" _Simply_ ," repeats Thomas.

"You're wrong, besides," continues Sybil, determined, "if I'm going to be a lady I'll be Lady Sybil Barrow."

"You've made up your mind on that one, then?"

It's been made up for months, but also...

"Papa would hate it if I were to be divorced."

Thomas laughs.

"He _would,_ " she insists, "it's probably the only thing _worse_ than eloping, getting divorced–"

But he's still laughing, and then she's laughing too, because this really is the most ridiculous thing that's ever happened to her and probably to either of them, but nothing about it can change now, and if it could it certainly wouldn't be here, in a bed and breakfast hours north of Downton and just across the border. All there is left to do in the moment is laugh about it, and so they do, until their faces are red and they've run out of breath and her belly hurts—she's _married,_ they're _married,_ the war ended and the convalescent home wrapped up and they got caught up in all of it and now they're _married,_ and they're going to be for the rest of their lives. It ought to be a joke, but it isn't.

And most people probably wouldn't find it very funny, at the heart, but they can, for now.

After they've caught their breath, calmed down, Thomas sighs. He flops back down onto the bed and rolls over to lie on his back, his arm up over his face. "So what now?" he asks.

 _That_ is a very good question.

**Author's Note:**

> later date edit to indicate that scotland actually had a residence requirement for marriages at this point that has since been repealed hence why i didn't bother checking it, but it actually doesn't matter because it was going to happen on the show which means it's possible in the downton abbey universe, and ergo can happen here!
> 
> as always i love & appreciate comments and kudos very much even though i have not been consistent/good at replying, acknowledging, etc them lately! also (no one is surprised) i am ill again (sinus infection) so i don't anticipate getting better at that soon but I Will Do My Best. also always, i am on tumblr as [@combeferre](https://combeferre.tumblr.com/).
> 
> thank you for reading!! <3


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